"Should we pull out the weeds?", they asked. "No", Jesus
replied, "You will uproot the wheat if you do. Let the good seeds and
weeds grow together until the harvest.” (Mathew 13:28,29)

Are you struggling to correct your loved ones?

We are destined to live, work, and die with good and bad people, and
hostile circumstances. It is the real challenge of each individual born
with flesh and blood. Otherwise, we should go to the mountains of Greece
or to the deserts of Egypt or to the hills of Himalayas to live as monks
seeking solitude. It is the easiest way to escape the harsh realities of
life. But the fact is that we share this planet with other people.
Interacting with others, whether they share our goal of living or not,
can be the most difficult and the most important work we do. We get
angry and argue, fight, and even kill those who are not in our lines. At
last, we lose our mental peace and happiness.

John and Mercy are a 80 plus couple. They began their first day of
marriage with arguments and counter arguments regarding how incompatible
they were. Both wanted to correct each other. They adopted all tools
available but failed to correct an inch of their conditioned lives. They
tried to separate a number of times but pulled on with their lives for
the sake of their five children, fear of society, and the lack of
courage to do so. Counselling, pilgrimages, fasting and prayers did not
work in their favour. As a last resort, Mercy decided to stop herself
from correcting her husband. Instead she decided to accept her husband
as he is with all his shortcomings. She even started to love him. This
worked out very well and soon, John too slowly stopped correcting his
wife. With this strategy in place, they could now live peacefully
together. John feels that a great tempest has been removed from their
lives by their simple act of accepting each other's shortcomings, and
now they love each other for who they are.

"Let me not look for what I can get, but for what I can give. Let me not
seek so much to be loved as to love, to be consoled as to console” - St.
Francis of Assisi.

Prayer : Jesus, let us learn how to love instead of finding faults and
correcting them. Let us have the mind of accepting the reality of good
and evil. Let family members live under one roof with all their
shortcomings. Let us correct ourselves first. We pray that all families
in turmoil may find peace and happiness. All we ask in the name of
Jesus. Amen